Marisa Kirisame
“It ain’t magic if it ain’t flashy!” General Information Marisa is a common playable character in most subsequent games throughout the Touhou series with somewhat rare alternative roles such as being an Extra stage boss. Her first ever appearance in the Touhou Project was in the second PC-98 game Story of Eastern Wonderland. Additionally, she has made a guest appearance as the first Extra stage boss in the Seihou Project's first work Shuusou Gyoku. Marisa serves as an audience surrogate of sorts - she is straight-forward and much easier to understand than other characters, typically filling the support role. She also serves as contrast to Reimu, who's blessed with innate abilities, by being the hard-working type of character without any special powers. ZUN has said that this makes her a rather "un-Touhou-like" character, but also gives him much more leeway in creating a story. Marisa's height is that of a girl in her early teens and is in the "fairly short" group. Unlike Patchouli Knowledge and Alice Margatroid, who are magicians by species, she's merely an ordinary human who uses magic. In the games themselves, she's a character who consistently stresses high power and quick speed. She exceeds in attack and penetration power, but her attack range is generally narrow. Her signature move is the tremendous laser spell card, Love Sign "Master Spark". She has good speed and power, but poor melee technique. Personality Marisa is very straightforward and informal with everyone. She can be condescending, as if trying to make a fool of others, and often has difficulty expressing sympathy. She's often unyielding and uncooperative. She has a mania for collecting things and may have a hoarding disorder. She's quick to act if she hears anything interesting. Marisa is also a habitual liar, but she makes no effort to actually deceive anyone as her lies are extremely obvious. She puts more thought into her words than Reimu, and occasionally has to caution the shrine maiden from accidentally spilling the truth at an inopportune time. In later appearances, Marisa has revealed that she does care about the wellbeing of Gensokyo, but she conceals it underneath her usual rowdy self. Marisa is very hard-working, but she goes to great lengths to not show that side of hers to others. She claims to be "the number two in Gensokyo" and takes great pride in her magical prowess, believing that she will be known as a great witch, sparing no effort to achieve that goal. Abilities Marisa is a normal human with no innate abilities, but her true strength lies in her ability to use one of the highest classes of magic power that humans can use – an unusual feat perhaps only possible because of the effects of the Forest of Magic. She's also faced very powerful humans and youkai and was able to solve a number of incidents in various scenarios, all being high achievements. However, her existence is closest to an ordinary person; she was born without any innate abilities (unlike Reimu Hakurei) and has been compared to "humans of a level close to us" by ZUN. As a result, the interpretations of Marisa's power can go to extremes. She has an attachment to power and has self-belief in ostentatious display of power. She always finds opponents to fight and plays by finding faults. However, she's actually a hard worker, and her power is the result of her secret training. For example, Marisa appears to have developed an innate resistance against poisonous substances, due to her gathering of mushrooms and living in the Forest of Magic. Marisa has trained herself in magic that specialises in light and heat. She's an Eastern magician who takes a Western approach to magic, the opposite of Patchouli Knowledge. Her magic has tremendous power and few weaknesses, but it has few non-destructive uses, so she uses it for flashy youkai extermination more than anything. Her magic makes for a good danmaku show, but this is made possible only through her strenuous honest effort in creating layered effects. The majority of her spells rely on power over finesse and are themed after stars and other astronomical phenomena. According to Perfect Memento in Strict Sense, it's strange for a human to have mastery of magic of this level. Marisa seems to take pride in her own speed, which is potentially among the fastest for a human. When she used Double Spark againt Watatsuki no Yorihime in Silent Sinner in Blue, she moved some meters away from the first laser fast enough that she was able to shot a second one before the first reached the Moon princess. However, ZUN has mentioned that Aya Shameimaru is the fastest in Gensokyo, and Marisa appears to consider Aya extremely fast, and a worthy challanger in terms of speed, so while there is the idea that Marisa is really fast, there might be other characters that are faster than her. Marisa's high speed is echoed in the games, usually by giving her the fastest or one of the fastest movement speed. Story Marisa's adventure in the PC-98 started in Story of Eastern Wonderland, where she was the stage 4 boss and a disciple of Mima. She was a child who was tasked to keep Reimu Hakurei from reaching Mima, but was defeated. Phantasmagoria of Dim.Dream was where Marisa first appeared as a playable character, albeit not as the second choice - instead, Mima takes on that role. In the story, Marisa follows Mima and finds Reimu at mysterious old ruins, which promise a fantastic prize for whoever enters. A battle with six others for the prize ensued. Lotus Land Story was where Marisa first started to be the second playable character, which became standardised throughout the Touhou Project. Here, Marisa senses a great magic power and wishes to make it hers. She heads towards the Lake of Bloodwithout Reimu's knowledge, not letting anyone stand in her quest for power, and encounters Yuuka Kazami. In Mystic Square, Marisa overhears Reimu planning to enter Makai to take care of a recent outbreak of demons. Interested in Makai's magic, she takes off without telling Reimu. Modern Era 1 During Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, while flying through the sky, Marisa notices she suddenly cannot see the lake. She swoops in to check out the situation. During the May of a seemingly endless winter in Perfect Cherry Blossom, cherry blossom petals land outside Marisa's house. She follows these petals in search of spring. In Imperishable Night, Alice is perturbed about the Moon, so she decides to bribe Marisa into coming along with her to find out who's responsible for the fake Moon. In Phantasmagoria of Flower View, the flowers are blooming out of season, but this doesn't bother Marisa much at first. She simply wants to find out who's responsible for it and will be the first to know why. Modern Era 2 Marisa sees that something is bothering Reimu and finds out that a rival shrine wants to take over. Marisa isn't going to sit back and let that happen, so if Reimu isn't going to do something about it, she certainly will. In Subterranean Animism, a geyser appears behind the Hakurei Shrine, and Reimu and Marisa are ecstatic about their newfound hot spring. The youkai, however, are less than pleased as Earth spirits begin to spew out of the geyser. Patchouli and Yukari suspect it was an attempt to lure youkai into the geyser and decide to send Marisa instead to investigate. In Undefined Fantastic Object, Marisa notices a ship flying through the sky and hopes to be able to plunder it for its riches. When she hears that it was going to Makai, she gets excited. In Ten Desires, an influx of divine spirits will block the flower-viewing, so Marisa wants to be the first to solve it. Modern Era 3 Marisa discovers that her Mini-Hakkero is acting on its own that shoots out fire, believed to be turning into a tsukumogami. After discovering that previously docile youkai have become violent, Marisa learns from Yatsuhashi Tsukumo and Benben Tsukumothat a group of youkai are planning social upheaval. She travels to the Shining Needle Castle and defeats Seija Kijin, who remarks that her allies can become as strong as they want to if they ignore the consequences. After being led by Seija to the inner parts of the castle, she defeats the Miracle Mallet-wielding Shinmyoumaru Sukuna. Afterwards, a magical storm similar to the one caused by the Miracle Mallet rages and Marisa finds that the cause is the tsukumogami Raiko Horikawa, who had successfully changed her source of magic to that of the outside world. After beating Raiko, Marisa lets her go in exchange for not causing any problems in the future. Spinoffs In Immaterial and Missing Power, a strange feast catches Marisa's attention, so she goes to look for clues. Marisa doesn't actually appear in Shoot the Bullet, but instead in a "Special story" that was added to the afterword. It shows that she and Reimu Hakurei are talking about a notebook she found. In Scarlet Weather Rhapsody, Marisa is unable to dry her laundry due to the constant drizzle. Deciding something's wrong, she sets out to find the perpetrator. Marisa, not a main character, is only playable via selectable character to play with in Touhou Hisoutensoku. In Cirno's scenario, Marisa is sitting in a hot spring when Cirno appears and asks her if she saw a Daidarabotchi. Marisa decides to give her a hard time and fights her. After Marisa was "surprisingly defeated", she point Cirno the the wrong way. After Cirno comes back after a realisation, Marisa points that she saw a giant figure in the Forest of Magic. Even Marisa was interested on what the giant was. Also in Meiling's scenario, she doesn't actually appear here, to which is in fact a pseudo-Marisa who was sent by the Giant Catfish to assassinate Hong Meiling in her dreams, but was defeated. In Double Spoiler, Marisa appeared as a stage Ex target, where she uses a few spell cards and had Aya Shameimaru and Hatate Himekaidou take photos of her and her danmaku. Marisa appears as the Extra stage boss of Fairy Wars. While Marisa is returning from a flower-viewing session, Cirno shows up and asks for a fight due to Aya suggesting that Cirno should fight a human. Marisa doesn't take the request very seriously at first, but she decides to fight using her non-deadly lasers. Surprisingly, Cirno puts up a good fight and actually manages to defeat Marisa, although Cirno appears to be defeated instead, even though Marisa was going easy on her. Marisa just heads back home after the fight to rest. After apparently reading the newspaper by the tengu about a mischief-making amanojaku, she becomes one of the many strong youkai and humans to try and stop Seija Kijin. She uses spell cards that are considered impossible to dodge. Marisa appears as a playable character in Urban Legend in Limbo. She was originally shown on a leaflet with various urban Japanese youkai with a torch/flashlight as though she's telling a spooky story. In the scenario, she discovered a phenomenon at Kourindou and took its power as herselves. Reimu Hakurei finds Marisa and wanted her to taste some mushrooms for poison, but Marisa attacked her with occult power. Reimu was confused, seeing a bizarre stone of sort. In the Rin Satsuki arc, Marisa appeared as an enemy eight times. In other events of the arc, she did appear, but only with a supporting role, often guiding the heroes to the right direction. In the overturn arc, she investigated the return of perfect possession with the help of Ninten. At the end of her little story, they defeated Joon and Nisemono, though they weren’t behind it at all. While the DIO incident was going on, Marisa helped Bruno, Venom, Steve, Pearl, Marina, and Pepper defeat Commander Tartar and save Inkopolis. Relationships Reimu Hakurei Marisa is good friends with Reimu Hakurei and often hangs out at the Hakurei Shrine. Although it was originally Reimu's job, Marisa also snatches requests for youkaiextermination at her convenience. In addition to incidents, there are many scenes where they're together, especially in the print works, often eating evening meals together. It is, however, never shown that Marisa has been inside the shrine. Even though they're friends, they'll occasionally end up fighting each other, over an incident they're trying to solve or sometimes for personal reasons. In her fights with Reimu, she wins about 40% of the time. She's also jealous of how Reimu never does any training and yet is strong by her natural abilities. If Reimu weren't there, Marisa would die due to boredom, so their relationship is beneficial. However, whenever Reimu's involved in something strange, half the time it seems that Marisa induced it behind Reimu's back. Marisa named Reimu's signature spell, Fantasy Nature. Their friendship most likely began as soon as they met - in Story of Eastern Wonderland, Marisa seems to immediately take an interest in Reimu, helping her train in the bad endings. Throughout the rest of the PC-98 era, Marisa often hangs around the Hakurei Shrine. In the Lotus Land Story ending, the two went outside together in plain clothing. In Marisa’s good ending in Lotus Land Story, Reimu said that it wouldn't be good for Marisa to interfere with her work. Furthermore, When Reimu reminded Marisa that it was dangerous, Marisa simply laughed and disregarded the warning. It appears that their daily life hasn't changed much. Alice Margatroid Alice Margatroid is a fellow magician of the Forest of Magic. They were partners in Imperishable Night, and she also supported Marisa in Subterranean Animism. They first fought during the events of Mystic Square, and later in Perfect Cherry Blossom. She seems to have a love-hate relationship of sorts with Marisa, with the two often insulting and fighting each other, yet teaming up on several occasions. For all the bickering the two go through, they seem to be close friends, as Alice once recommended Marisa's shop to the Three Fairies of Light when they needed some youkai extermination, and is comfortable enough with Marisa that in Imperishable Night's bad ending, she has no qualms with sleeping over at Marisa's house beside her. Residents of the Scarlet Devil Mansion The residents of the mansion are fully aware of Marisa sneaking into the magic library. They generally look the other way, but various incidents and win quotes from the fighting games shows that they'll fight Marisa in a duel if they actually catch her in the act. At other times, they'll simply leave her be, such as the mansion's private moon viewing party, or Marisa's endings in Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, where Sakuya even plays along with her, either serving her food or helping to conceal her from Remilia Scarlet. She's on friendly enough terms that she can walk in without any issue from most of the residents, even if she steals things. Patchouli Knowledge Patchouli Knowledge is one of the victims of Marisa's burglary, often having books from her library stolen. Despite that, she was supporting Marisa in Subterranean Animism, and they seemed to be on rather good terms. Additionally, Marisa has copied one of Patchouli's attacks and named it Love Sign "Non-Directional Laser". Flandre Scarlet In Perfect Memento in Strict Sense, Marisa commented, "sometimes when I sneak into the Scarlet Devil Mansion, I run into the little sister. I had to slip by without drawin' her attention, but after goin' through all that to get into the place, I was hopin' I wouldn't run into her." Nitori Kawashiro Nitori Kawashiro knows Marisa from the events of Mountain of Faith, and fancies herself as a friend of Marisa's. She was a support character in Subterranean Animism. Nitori isn't a magician so it cannot be said that they have "good compatibility". That they're a magician with a zeal for research and an engineer with a vigourous thirst for knowledge, is something that could possibly be said to be a point at which they're alike fellows who'd get along easily. There's been no depiction where the Youkai Mountain has ever been a victim of her robbery. Nitori herself has a personality of liking humans. Nitori and her fellow kappa are seen associated with Marisa in Wild and Horned Hermit, possibly for mutual business purposes. Nitori does get very annoyed by Marisa whenever her things are stolen from her. Even for Marisa, who's habitually aloof from the world, in Subterranean Animism's conversations she was like someone in high spirits pressing on. Mima In the PC-98 games, Marisa is subservient to Mima. She admires her greatly, boasting that "Lady Mima cannot be beaten" in Story of Eastern Wonderland's omake and apologizing to her when defeated by Reimu Hakurei. Mima is currently the only character to be addressed honorifically by Marisa. Additionally, she takes some inspiration from Mima, sharing her attack patterns using magical orbs (as well as using them in her Orreries Sun spell card) and using illusionary wings similar to hers in Phantasmagoria of Dim.Dream. However, they are never shown to engage in conversation with one another on-screen (the closest to it being Mima telling Marisa to "train harder" in Phantasmagoria of Dim.Dream and Marisa's cheerfulness when she defeats her). ZUN doesn't answer any questions regarding their relationship, but says that Marisa's attitude towards Mima is easy to understand. Satori Komeiji and Koishi Komeiji After the events of Subterranean Animism in her scenarios with Nitori Kawashiro and Patchouli Knowledge, Marisa impressed Koishi enough with her strength that she's allowed to come and play at the Palace of Earth Spirits at any time. She may say she's a friend of Satori to get everyone down there to leave her alone, because all the underground youkai hate Satori. Although Marisa and Satori tend to put each other at unease at times, Marisa looks forward to being able to go underground whenever she wants to. Ninten Andrews Ninten often assists Marisa in her activities of stealing and beating up bad guys. But she hasn’t seen him for a while. Commander Tartar Tartar is Marisa’s most notable enemy. She’s had to defeat him to save Inkopolis two times, making him the closest thing to a nemesis for Marisa. Quotes "I just don't think about losing." "Unfortunately, I'm pretty good at dodging." "That's sweet, I only get weekends off." "Hold on, if you sleep in this cold I'll kill you." "Okay, okay, I give up. You're right. The endless night, stealing the full moon, hiding the human village, and putting hats on stone statues, it's all Alice's fault. Now, bitch, get out of the way!" "Move and I'll shoot!! I messed up. I mean, shoot and I'll move. In a flash." "That was a pointless encounter with a pointless person." "I killed some lively and exciting guys on my way up here..." Category:Heroes